Introduction: In recent years, digital transformation has emerged as a determining factor in redefining the functions of higher education, giving rise to novel models of value creation, innovation, and entrepreneurship within the context of digital technologies. Failure to accurately identify and understand these factors may result in a gap between the potential capacities of universities and their actual outcomes in the establishment and development of digital businesses. in this regard, the present study aimed to identify and rank the factors influencing the development of digital entrepreneurship in academic environments.

Methodology: This research was applied in terms of purpose and employed a mixed-methods (qualitative-quantitative) design for data collection, following a deductive–inductive approach. The dominant paradigm was interpretive, grounded in a social constructivist perspective. The qualitative study population consisted of all experts and specialists in the field of entrepreneurship with familiarity in technology and digital entrepreneurship at the University of Kurdistan. Using purposive sampling combined with the snowball technique, 21 individuals were selected as the sample. The quantitative population included all managers, staff, and faculty members at the University of Kurdistan, from which 256 participants were randomly selected based on Cochran’s formula. Semi-structured interviews were used for qualitative data collection, while a researcher-developed questionnaire was employed for quantitative data. The trustworthiness of the interview data was confirmed through the participant feedback method, and the reliability of the interviews was verified using the agreement coefficient and test–retest methods. The face validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts, and its reliability, measured by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, was 0.87.For data analysis, thematic analysis was employed in the qualitative phase, while exploratory factor analysis, one-sample t-test, and Friedman test were used in the quantitative phase.

Findings: The findings revealed that the most significant factors influencing the development of digital entrepreneurship at the University of Kurdistan were, in order of priority: communication and networking development, employees’ digital competencies, technological factors, policymaking, education and learning improvement, environmental factors, and academic factors.

Conclusion/Contributions: The results underscore the fundamental and multidimensional importance of emerging technologies in developing digital entrepreneurship capacities within academic settings. The outcomes also suggest that the success of digital academic entrepreneurship in Iran is not merely a technological issue but rather the product of a complex interplay among technology-based readiness, dynamic capabilities, structural transformation within universities, and an enabling environmental ecosystem. The outcomes also suggest that the success of digital academic entrepreneurship in Iran is not merely a technological issue but rather the product of a complex interplay among technology-based readiness, dynamic capabilities, structural transformation within universities, and an enabling environmental ecosystem.